FDR and Senator Pat Harrison

In 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed one of the most significant pieces of twentieth-century legislation, the Social Security Act. Captured in a photograph, the man pictured on his left in a white suit and holding a cigar is U.S. Senator Pat Harrison of Mississippi, chair of the powerful Finance Committee.

Two years later, Harrison joined the president on a trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Afterwards, FDR sent the senator recompense for poker losses during that visit.